Radio Robida

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Traces

Here is a sign, a trace, a mark, a line, a dot, a leftover, an image, a small thing, an anectode told by someone, an encounter, a moment, a word, a note, a dog-eared page, a feeling, a question. Here is and will be a collection of lines, of stories, of passing of things.

caring–carrying–maintaining


23/03/2023

_pp. 108-109

Les Traces
'Les Traces' from Yona Friedman, L'ordine Complicato: Come costruire un'immagine, Quodlibet, 2011

20/03/2023

_Line

For movement’s sake the line is free to go where it will and in reading it, the eyes follow the same path as did the hand in drawing it. 

Drawing a line is much like telling a story, the storyline goes along as does the line. The line is a path traced through the terrain of lived experience. To tell a story, Ingold says: “is to relate, in narrative, the occurrences of the past, retracing a path through the world that others, recursively picking up the threads of past lives, can follow in the process of spinning out their own”.

We spent days following lines imagined by someone years ago, maybe many years ago. First traced by the eyes on the rock, then performed with body movements and finally traced by a pen on a map. The drawing allows the line to be repeated, thus, the body gestures to happen over and over, again and again. Every repetition, slowly, in time, creates the story of that line on the rock. Every movement embodies the desire to experience that specific story on the limestone, granite, conglomerate. Once the line finishes, another one attracts the attention. One line follows the other. Lines connected through the landscape. Stories connected through people's experience.

“There is always somewhere further to go. And in storytelling as in wayfaring, it is in the movement from place to place – or from topic to topic – that knowledge is integrated.”

*Tim Ingold, Lines: Up, Across and Along, Routledge, 2007

Series of lines
Series of lines.

08/02/2023

_Tingling

When the sunlight touches the surface of the water little sparkles appear – I call them tingles. It somehow makes me smile and feel light. When tingles affect my body, I usually can't calm down, a special enthusiasm takes over everything and makes me feel bubbling.
I love the Italian word to define this phenomena: 'formicolio', from 'formica' (ant); as when I was young and without noticing I sat over an ant hill – multitude in motion – and suddenly my body was covered of these fast little insects.

I experience different types of this little slight prickling sensation. Tingling describes both the quick, very quick movement of elements in space, the strong feeling of an emotion, and the feeling as if a lot of sharp points are being put quickly and lightly into the body.

Tingles for the unknown. Tingles for surprises. Tingles for excitement. Tingles of fear. Pins and needles.

Sometimes I take a moment to observe the splendid sparkles flowing on the surface of the water creating an over-shifting brilliant pattern. Somehow standing in a point and observing this spectacle gives me a sense of, at the same time, calm and excitement. Their magic and ephemeral presence is hard to grasp and even when I see them, if I slowly move I notice how the sparkle slowly disappears, but I carry some tingles with me.

I clearly remember when two years ago I started to feel it again. It was the beginning of spring, days were getting longer here in the lowlands and after a slow and introspective period I suddenly started to feel better. The sunlight reflected in the canals of Amsterdam made me smile and a sensation of lightness swept all over me. The months after I just felt constant tingles for the present and the unknown, a lot of energy and desire to explore, share with others and let myself be surprised again. Many other tingling moments followed. Sometimes they are little situations–traces–memories that I like to remember and carry-with-me. Lived moments, that if I think about, I immediately feel some joy.

“How else do most of us experience history if not in the presence or absence of small things?”
Thea Lenarduzzi, Dandelions, Fitzcarraldo, 2020

Series of tingling.
Series of tingling.